Two-way wireless communication systems that support inbound calling from a telephone system are well known. Examples of such systems include cellular telephone systems and trunked radio systems. Simpler, less expensive two-way wireless communication systems have recently become available. One such system is the "CT2" system comprising, for example, the S35XGB1602AP base station and the S35XCD1000AA portable communication unit, both manufactured by Motorola, Inc. of Schaumburg, Ill. The CT2 system typically has included a plurality of base stations at a plurality of locations called "telepoints." Each telepoint usually had from two to six base station transceivers, and each transceiver was coupled to the telephone system by a telephone line. Unfortunately, conventional telepoint systems initially did not provide inbound call capability. That is, a telepoint user could originate a call to any destination reachable by the telephone system, but could not receive any inbound calls.
Several different procedures for providing inbound calling have been proposed. One example procedure (defined herein as the "Meet-Me" procedure) uses a telephone switch coupled to a paging system to send a Meet-Me telephone number to a radio pager coupled to the portable communication unit. The Meet-Me telephone number when dialed by the portable communication unit through a base station reaches a port of the telephone switch, where a waiting inbound call is then connected to the portable communication unit. Another example procedure (defined herein as the "Call Forwarding" procedure) uses a telephone switch coupled to a paging system to send a call identification number to a radio pager coupled to the portable communication unit. The portable communication unit sends the call identification number to a base station, which sends the telephone switch a predetermined "feature code" followed by the call identification number. The telephone switch then forwards by a call-back to the base station a waiting inbound call identified by the call identification number.
The two procedures for inbound calling described above require the portable communication unit and the base station to respond in two different manners to process the call. This implies that a base station and a portable communication unit compatible with one of the procedures are different from a base station and a portable communication unit compatible with the other procedure. Additional procedures requiring additional differing responses are likely to be proposed in the future, requiring additional unique varieties of base stations and portable communication units. Still, for economic and administrative reasons it is highly desirable that a single base station configuration and a single portable communication unit configuration be compatible with at least several of the most prevalent procedures for inbound calling without requiring alteration of the base station or the portable communication unit.
Thus, what is needed is a method and apparatus for overcoming the need for unique construction of the base station and the portable communication unit for compatibility with different inbound calling procedures. Preferably, the method and apparatus should be readily adaptable to modifications and additions for accommodating new inbound calling procedures that may be developed in the future.